Sohu Entertainment Special Article (A He/Wen Fat Department/Editor)
After the first public stage, the "singing decline" of "Riding the Wind 2024" (hereinafter referred to as "Sister Lang 5") is intensifying.
Some people feel that "the show has gone sour", and some people feel that there are too many "bastards", which makes the show "start to go downhill".
"Sister Lang" was originally an "elected" variety show. Its idea came from a post in the Douban group, where the poster said that she was looking forward to seeing 30+ sisters with different personalities living, competing, and pulling their heads in the fierce competition...... So, this is "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves".
However, the time has come to the fifth year, and like most series of IPs, the "Sister Lang" series has inevitably had bottlenecks: on the one hand, it has almost stepped on the "thunder point" of the reality show, and on the other hand, it has shown "fatigue" due to the decline in casting, competition system, creativity, etc.
To a certain extent, when talking about the creative dilemma of "Sister Lang 5", we are also discussing the general dilemma faced by the national comprehensive.
Inspirational to become "fake hi"?
From the first season to the fifth season, "Sister Lang" has undergone two name changes: first removed "sister" and changed its name to "Riding the Wind and Waves" in the third season, and then removed "Breaking the Waves" and changed its name to "Riding the Wind 2023" from the fourth season.
The original intention of the name change was to enhance the pattern and vision.
This is also very evident in the theme of the show. For example, the themes of the first three seasons are all linked to "Thirty", but the themes of the fourth and fifth seasons have changed and are linked to "Great Beauty China", becoming "Great Beauty China, Riding the Wind" and "Great Beauty China, Enthusiasm Becomes the Wind".
In "Sister Lang 5", this "pattern expansion" has gone further.
First of all, it was also mentioned in the program that "Sister Lang 5" had a total of 36 sisters participating, the largest number of sisters in the series;Secondly, the number of cross-border sisters has also further increased, adding Zhou Yangqing, Miss Han Yiying and other "cross-border new stars"; finally, the number of international sisters has also increased significantly, with sisters from Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea (American), the United States, France, and Russia.
But this kind of "expansion" may not be smooth at the moment. Before the show started, there was news on the Internet that the two international sisters had withdrawn from the competition, and the program confirmed that the two sisters were American singer Sash and Russian singer Mari.
After experiencing the controversy over topics such as "women's marriage and love" and "age" in "Sister Lang 4", the program team and guests maintained a strong "desire to survive" in this season, and rarely mentioned related topics. When Qi Wei greeted Zhu Dan, Zhu Dan jokingly said that it was "not allowed to talk" about family and children here, and made a "shh
This kind of "circumvention" may be understood as a kind of pandering to the current topic field.
Frankly speaking, when the time comes to the fifth year, all the hot topics of women on the Internet, the "Sister Lang" series have been mentioned to a greater or lesser extent. This also makes today's avoidance inevitably a little deliberate.
There is also a topic controversy, as well as the topic of "involution and internal friction". If it is said that the word-of-mouth reversal of "from negative to positive" experienced by Xu Huaiyu last season was a small test that secretly matched the audience's emotions, then this season's Guo Biting's Buddhist lying flat is a complete stay in the comfort zone.
The "inspirational" tone set in the first two seasons is dissipating step by step.
And the editing of the program group seems to have consciously reduced the "volume" degree of pre-game preparation.
Instead, it is more emotional camera capture, such as the hugging and crying of the "Hair Like Snow" team when they chatted about family feelings, the tears of He Jie, the first male "Malanshan Girl", when celebrating her birthday, and Yang Jinhua chatted about her "heavy process and participation" at the dinner table with tears in her eyes.
This editing technique shows the underlying logic of "those who get emotions get traffic". Once the audience is moved by the emotions of the guests, the purpose of the producer has been achieved.
But this kind of gameplay has struggled to impress a time-tested audience. The stage is discolored, and thousands of tons of tears can't be replaced.
The problem caused by the expansion of the pattern of "Sister Lang" is that ability cannot support ambition. The flow is there, but the power of women, the courage and motivation of women to change the status quo, has almost disappeared.
"Script"
The core essence of reality TV is not "show" but "truth".
However, since the broadcast of the "Sister Lang" series, the proportion of "show" has been increasing step by step, and the related controversy directly points to the scoring mechanism of topic routines and "confusion".
The casting of the "Sister Lang" series has shown a certain routine, such as the "own people" that must be there every season. Last season, there was Xie Na's "C-position debut", and this season, He Jie, Shang Wenjie, Liu Xin, Sa Dingding and other stars who came out of "Malan Mountain" came out of the collective carnival.
Almost all of the contestants who came out of Supergirl and Fast Girl played important roles in the show, either captains or big vocals, so as to get more performance opportunities and shots.
There are also some "close relatives" who will receive preferential treatment. For example, Qi Wei, since Lee Seung-hyun participated in "Brother Phi" out of the circle, Qi Wei has also become a supernumerary member of the "Malan Mountain Department". This time, she not only participated in "Sister Lang 5", but also contributed to the "marriage" between the program team and Thai sister Mai.
And some guests were pointed out by netizens that they failed to get the "blue eyes" of the program group.
"Danren" Chen Haoyu belongs to this hanging. On the first stage, Chen Haoyu amazed the audience with a song "Wild Son", and the treble soared to the hearts of many people. As a result, it was scored, but it only scored a measly 362 points, not only losing to the Thai sister Mai, but also falling to 21st in the big ranking, which makes people have to question whether the score of the program group is reasonable.
Some comments pointed out that the earrings that the program team wore to her at the beginning of the stage were all worn by Rainie Yang in "Sister Lang 2".
Behind all kinds of topics is the common "script" problem of domestic variety shows.
It has long been an open secret that reality shows have scripts. For example, the audience will think that in order to pursue the effect of the program, many competitive rankings have internal determinations.
For example, in "Sister Lang 5", Shang Wenjie's team PK He Jie's team and He Jie's team relied on the "1V1" bonus mechanism to overtake the horse-catching scene, which looks very much like a script setting.
Over the years, I have watched too many true and false "shows", and there is a saying that "domestic reality shows have been thirsting for people for a long time".
At present, the audience of domestic reality shows is mainly young people, and what do young people care about the most? They are tired of pretense, tired of false politeness, and like to see the true temperament of the star.
This is also why, in the short comment area of many reality shows, "too fake" will become a high-frequency word to express the audience's core evaluation of a domestic reality show. This is also why, reality shows like "Splendid Garden" and "Let's Farm the Land" will go the opposite way, taking "no script" and "pure wild" as their own promotional selling points.
Because compared with the hypocrisy and water scoring built by those scripts, what the audience wants to watch reality shows is always sincerity, true meaning, and true feeling.
3. The novelty is gone, and the impetuousness comes to fill the position
"Steady progress" is a problem that every series of IP has to face, and "Sister Lang" is no exception.
Once, "Sister Lang", which was aimed at forming a group, was a variant of idol cultivation, but it was a school of its own with its unique stylization. The 30+ sisters are of different ages and personalities, and they can establish a deep friendship in life and cooperation, and offer a dazzling stage.
The concept itself is exciting enough, so it is inevitable that it will explode.
In the process of advancing, the sisters also used their charm to feed back the show.
For example, the sisters in the first season released a lot of true temperament. Zhang Yuqi was given a pending "X" by the judges on the stage, and directly retorted to the first army, "Is X representative very good?" and when Yi Nengjing's work rhythm was disrupted, he directly angrily scolded the staff, "Can you cooperate with me, don't let me cooperate with you."
After the international sisters joined in the third and fourth seasons, the program team not only explored the various possibilities of the guests, but also extended the imagination of the performance stage.
In "Sister Lang 4", Gong Linna and Mei Yi Liya sang "Sea of Flowers" in each other's native language, which was passed on by the audience as a beautiful talk. With the fall of the petals, the sympathy between women crosses the border and achieves a higher level of spiritual harmony.
Although "Sister Lang 5" also has a recent topic such as Yue Opera actor Chen Lijun, her appearance and stage have also become a bright presence in the show, but after the show was broadcast, although the stage content related to Chen Lijun also created a lot of noise, the transformation effect on the overall program was relatively limited.
When the show itself began to follow the routine to create topics, relying only on the personal charm of the sisters, it became more and more impossible to bring the stage of "Sister Lang".
To make a reality show survive for a long time, it depends not only on the personal charm of the guests and the flash of inspiration on the stage, but also on the creative inspiration of the creative team.
The "Sister Lang" series is difficult to say how much innovation there is. From the first season to the fifth season, the basic settings of the show have never changed: the first stage, the team, the first gong, the second team, and the second gong...... There is no suspense in the big direction, and there are no surprises on the small stage, and the addition of the two has caused the audience's aesthetic fatigue.
When an IP show first appeared, its settings were always fresh and fun. But as time goes on, if you can't play more tricks, you're doomed to be eliminated.
This is not just the IP dilemma unique to "Sister Lang". In recent years, a number of classic programs that have created high reputation and high ratings, including "Extreme Challenge", "Let's Run", "Longing for Life" and "Escape Room", have basically gone downhill.
In addition to the freshness of the audience, there is also the decline of the originality of the IP. So now we miss those classic variety shows, not only the stalks and famous scenes in the show, but also the nostalgic creative era: unlimited brains, strong desire to create, and willing to work slowly.
Nowadays, variety shows are getting longer and longer, and one episode is not only divided into two episodes, but also three or four hours at every turn. The change in duration is actually directly linked to advertising revenue, which is intended to bring more exposure opportunities to advertisers. Of course, the audience can watch at double speed, jump to watch, and even just look at the "climax" on the timeline.
But this also shows that everything is becoming more and more impetuous.
The creation is impetuous, the guests are impetuous, and even the mentality of the spectators has become impetuous.
Perhaps, the best way out for domestic reality shows at present is to be more patient and provide more opportunities for trial and error for originality and innovation. After all, the future of Guozong is not in anyone, it has always been in the hands of the creators themselves.